


Deserve to be happy

by Sancolm



Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:40:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24754090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sancolm/pseuds/Sancolm
Summary: Alex realizes that he may have gone to the prom with the wrong person.
Relationships: Charlie St. George/Alex Standall, Zach Dempsey/Alex Standall
Comments: 6
Kudos: 34





	Deserve to be happy

**Author's Note:**

> Unpopular opinion : I don’t like the Chalex ship, I think Charlie is a good friend and a good person but he is an oppressive and nerdy boyfriend. Sorry not sorry (good though a little, he’s too cute)

Normally Alex didn’t like to dance, let alone draw attention to him, yet at that very moment all he wanted was for them to never stop dancing. He was not really aware of the time that had elapsed, only that arms enveloped him, the same arms that had made him feel safe so many times in the past.

He put his nose a little deeper into the neck of the one he finally agreed to love, keeping his eyes above his shoulder to watch the room slowly turn around them. And as the third song ended since they had been crowned kings, Alex wondered how they had been friends all these years when they could have been that. He remembered with affection their first kiss on the rooftop and... their only kiss on the rooftop.

Suddenly he stops dancing.

"Is everything all right?" asked his rider, but he did not have the voice he hoped to hear.

Charlie tried to get away, but Alex did press harder, not wanting to face him as he cheated on him in his mind. So they started turning again, but it wasn’t the same, it was embarrassing and uncomfortable. When, in the middle of the fifth song, Alex saw a black and empty look. This lasted only a fraction of a second, during which his blood bubbled under his skin, but by the time he made a turn on himself, he was no longer there.

He stopped again.

"Alex, are you sure you’re okay ?" asked Charlie this time, really worried.

Alex did not know, he looked closely at his boyfriend, and he wondered how he had confused them. How did he forget who he was dancing with.

Realizing that he had remained silent, he threw an excuse in the hope of not appearing suspicious.

''Yes, of course... I just have to go to the bathroom.''

"Do you want me to go with you ?"

"No! Shit, why did he scream. You’re not going to hold my dick while I pee, are you ?"

A fold formed on Charlie’s forehead, Alex laughed nervously before leaving the dance floor. He was about to leave the room when his name sounded behind him, he turned around. Jessica stood there, a smile adorning her lips and hair in battle by jumping. 

"Alex, what the fuck are you doing ? You planted Charlie just before the slow dances.''

He sniffed, since the beginning of the evening they only danced slowly. But right now he couldn’t think of Charlie.

"Have you seen Zach ?"

"Zach? She seemed surprised. The last time I saw him Clay offered to take him back in his car, but he refused so he still has to be here, Why ?''

"You were right, Jess, I deserve to be happy."

Before she could say anything, Justin popped up and invited her with a reverence to dance, she looked suspicious at Alex, but he urged her to move with a hand. When they were gone, Alex saw Clay go into the room covered with vomit, followed by Tony and Ani. He approached with a mocking smile.

"I should be worried about your condition ?'' He joked, once in front of them.

"Not ours, but John Lennon’s, perhaps." laughed Tony.

''What !''

"Zach," said Ani. "He’s not feeling very well."

''I will ask my mother to lend me her car keys so I can go back and forth to his house, since I came with you'' added Clay by wiping his shirt with his jacket.

"Where is he now ?"

''In the parking lot, he relieves himself in a bush.''

Alex thanked them and rushed out. It was cold and dark, but he soon found Zach. He was sitting on the floor with a flask in his hand and singing Imagine, Alex understood what Tony meant. He gently approached his friend and called him to make him react. As soon as Zach saw him, a huge smile appeared on his face and he exclaimed :  
"Alex! Buddy, come sit next to me, we’ll talk a little."

He did what he told him and they remained for a moment in complete silence.

"Thank you for bringing the girl home." said Zach.

From his place, Alex could smell the vomit and the alcohol emanated from his mouth.

"You think you would have, if we hadn’t intervened, would you have slept with her ?"

Zach takes a sip of his flask and he thinks long and hard about his answer.

''I don’t know, maybe I did, after all I paid her.''

Alex felt a pinch in his heart when he saw the condition in which his friend was, to the point of having tears in his eyes. He wiped them with a lapel and he got back on his feet to confront him.

''What is wrong whit you ?''

"I think I drank a little too much..."

"No," he said. "I mean, what's wrong whit you for months."

Zach looked him straight in the eye, he drank two more large sips of alcohol and rota loudly.

"Why do you drink like a fish ?" yelled Alex, overwrought.

"Why did you kill Bryce ?"  
Alex froze, for the first time in his life he did not want to scream, he could not even do it, no scathing answers came to him, no insults could express what he was feeling at the moment for Zach. He took a moment before finding his words, what could he say to him?

But he did not have time to think any longer, for Zach had risen and lifted him by the shirt. By the time he came to his senses, they were kissing. And Alex couldn’t help crying, it wasn’t how he imagined their first real kiss. In his dreams, it was he who kissed him after seeing him laugh, in his dreams it was soft and warm. But now it was unpleasant, smelly and painful.

How could he do that to him, kiss him after he told him about Bryce, kiss him after he pushed him away in the rooftop. When they parted, Zach smiled like an idiot.

''I thought you didn’t like guys'' couldn’t help but say Alex.

Zach’s face hardened and he walked away. As he recovered his flask that he had dropped during their kiss, Alex found the courage to answer his question.

"He threatened you, Bryce, he said he would destroy your life."

"You mean you killed him for me ?'' sniffed Zach.

"No, not really, but you beat him up, if he had denounced you you would have had problems and..."

"Don’t lie to me, you certainly didn’t kill him for me. And if that were true, do you think it would make your boyfriend happy to know that?"

''Charlie is not my...'' boyfriend. 

He stopped before finishing his sentence, which was not what he meant, he just wanted to remind him that he was his best friend and that Charlie wasfully aware of it. Zach raised his eyebrows and took another sip, he started singing again, a Joey Division song this time, a song that Alex had introduced him to. It couldn’t end like that, he just couldn’t go back inside and snuggle into Charlie’s arms, thinking how much sweeter Zach’s lips could have been.

"Why are you with me and not with Charlie ?"

He had asked her so gently, almost timidly, that Alex thought he had dreamt. But when Zach lifted up his eyes to him and he was able to read all the sorrow of a broken man, he understood that this time Zach was waiting for an answer.

''I don't know.''

Or maybe he did, just didn’t admit it. Alex admitted it to himself at the ball, but now he wasn’t so sure.

"Go find Charlie, he must be worried..."

"I love you, not Charlie !"

He missed it, but Alex didn’t regret it. He felt it was the most sincere sentence he had ever said since he confessed to hating camping. Zach approached, then he looked at Alex with eyes so soft that he thought he was burning on the spot, a sad smile stretched out his lips and pointed to his hair with his chin.

"You look good with it."

Alex placed his hand on the top of his skull does not understand what he meant, he felt the crown. She hadn’t moved, except now she seemed incredibly heavy and irritating.  
He didn’t deserve it.

Zach put his hand on Alex’s cheek, slowly wiping the tears and rubbing his cheekbone red. Alex leaned over, wanting to kiss him, for real.

''Go find him, may my volunteer dance classes be beneficial for someone.''

He shook his head, he didn’t know what he wanted, but it certainly wasn’t going back into the ballroom. Lips rested chastely on his forehead, carefully avoiding his scar. Zach walked away and took three large sips of alcohol.

''Zach...''

''If you see Clay telling him I’d rather die drunk here than get back in a car with him.''

Suddenly ambulances parked in the parking lot, paramedics came out with a stretcher, coming back a few minutes later with Justin on it. Zach swore and rushed alongside Jessica, but Alex could not move. 

He started crying again without realizing it, he was too tired to prevent tears from falling, he was too tired to prevent Charlie from comforting him as he came to find him, he was too tired to prevent himself from loving Zach. Watching the cars leave and Jessica collapse into Clay’s arms, he realized that maybe they were wrong.

Maybe they didn’t deserve to be happy.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m sorry if you had trouble understanding the story, English is not my first language. Thank you for reading !


End file.
